


a family of orchids

by blackeyedblonde



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Anal Sex, Birthday Sex, Bottom Hank, Developing Relationship, Domestic Bliss, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Mixed POV, Nature, Oral Sex, Porn with Feelings, Post-Pacifist Best Ending (Detroit: Become Human), Romance, Skinny Dipping, Vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2019-07-03 00:23:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15807549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackeyedblonde/pseuds/blackeyedblonde
Summary: And try as he might to divert away from the subject at all possible costs later that evening, Connor had slid into his lap like a cat in the middle ofCheersreruns and done enough negotiating with his mouth and his hands that Hank had finally relented. He’d been bought out by nothing more than Connor’s insistent kisses and a solid handy, and in the end had reluctantly agreed to take off the following long weekend to celebrate his fuckingbirthday.(Or: Hank's turning 54, and with Connor's urging decides that they could use a long weekend spent at a remote lake house on the Upper Peninsula.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> howdy there, I’m new in these parts. it’s good to be making content for a thriving fan base again after a very long time spent running on fumes in niche fandoms. I only found you guys about three weeks ago and immediately took a running swan dive straight into HankCon hell (if hell was a beautiful place I never want to leave)
> 
> I was initially calling this established relationship, but it’s more like established relationship with plenty of room left to learn and grow. these boys are still working out the kinks, bantering through their days in the pursuit of softer things. I hope I’ve done their rapport some small justice. the second part should be posted in the next few days, so please stay tuned :)

 

  
  
August’s brutal heat came and went like a reaper’s scythe, having made downtown Detroit take on the appearance of a mirage with heat rolling up from the roads and concrete buildings in rippled ribbons. Hank had sweat and sworn his way through the month from top to bottom, working cases with his cotton undershirt stuck between his shoulder blades and always half the mind to shave his goddamn head if it meant having the hair off the back of his neck for once.

The heat made homicide work even worse on the days when they’d walk into a crime scene that had been left to ferment in the summertime swelter for a week or so. _Cadaver soup_ , some of the beat cops had called it, spilling out onto the deceased’s front lawn to hurl up their protein shakes and greasy diner breakfasts while Hank stepped inside with Connor in tow to get a great big whiff of human decomp himself.

“Don’t even fuckin’ think about it,” he said first thing through a gasp, even though the wind had already been knocked out of him and his eyes were watering from the smell. Connor looked entirely untroubled by the stench of decay and had probably turned his olfactory sensors down before they even set foot inside, the lucky bastard. He still had the gall to stand there and look perplexed about what Hank was implying, though, as if he hadn’t already been eyeing up a spot of dried blood on the floor.

“Do what, Lieutenant?” he asked, almost facetious by Hank’s call, LED blinking bright blue all the while. The android then promptly knelt down in front of the victim to start running through diagnostics.

And it wasn’t the time or the place to rattle off some rant about kissing the same mouth that had cadaver juice in it, especially not with the beat guys crowded around outside with their ears bent and a dead body on the floor—not that Hank cared about them hearing, per se, he just didn’t need the details of his and Connor’s personal lives being discussed and debated at work, for Christ’s holy sake.

“I need a vacation,” he lamented instead, mostly to himself, but maybe to the universe in general. Sweat was damn near pouring off his brow and he’d likely have to burn his clothes after this. “Fuckin’ A.”

Connor was in the middle of snapping a single latex glove onto his right hand, obviously catering more to Hank’s so-called ‘delicate sensibilities’ about dead body etiquette than any real personal necessity, but perked right up at that. His face was curious but bright, not a solitary drop of sweat on him.

“Where would you like to go, Lieutenant?” he asked. Connor was never too great at calling him Hank when they weren’t at home or in private company. “I think it would be hugely beneficial to your mental and physical well-being to take some time off from work for a while, especially given your birthday is only six days from now.”

Hank was almost startled by Connor’s immediate enthusiasm. If he’d said the same thing out loud to any of his other colleagues—human, that is—, all he’d have gotten in return was a morose sigh and a _don’t we all, Hank_.

And then there was his birthday.

Usually September 6th came and went like any other shitty day of the year, unassuming and spent alone with Sumo and a bottle in his hand, passed out cold before midnight if he was lucky. Hank was fresh off living to see his 53rd trip around the fuckin’ sun when he first met Connor the year prior, but now he’s looking straight down the barrel at 54. He’d forgotten his birthday was coming up at all. But Connor hadn’t.

“I—,” Hank started to say, swallowing back the rest of his sentence. _I was just kidding_. “Shit, kid, I don’t know—I hadn’t really thought it through or anything. We’re on a scene, here. Too busy getting drilled in the nasal cavity by what’s left of Mr. Linden to talk about time off.”

Connor’s LED shifted to yellow and did one full rotation before blinking back to blue. Hank felt like he was being analyzed, and he was, but it wasn’t much different from getting sized up by the shrewd, kohl-lined stare of one of his old flames in college. He felt instantly sweatier in his clothes nonetheless.

“I want to discuss this more later tonight,” Connor had said, systematically snapping on his other rubber glove. “Although you probably disagree with me, I think it’s important that you take time for yourself and celebrate the day of your birth.”

And try as he might to divert away from the subject at all possible costs later that evening, Connor had slid into his lap like a cat in the middle of _Cheers_ reruns and done enough negotiating with his mouth and his hands that Hank had finally relented. He’d been bought out by nothing more than Connor’s insistent kisses and a solid handy, and in the end had reluctantly agreed to take off the following long weekend to celebrate his fucking _birthday_.  
  


* * *  
  


Three days before September 6th, Connor is beginning to exhibit some all-too-human signs of itching restlessness.

“Have you decided where you’d like to go for your impending birthday retreat?” he asks Hank bright and early, no more than thirty seconds after they’d sat down at their desks.

“Not yet,” Hank says, real nonchalant about it. Against all odds he’s got a far better poker face than Connor does. “No big hurry. Got plenty of time to figure it out.”

Hank sits back and watches his partner for most of the morning at the precinct without saying another word about it. He knows Connor has already scanned and re-scanned his work computer and home PC several times over the past few days, and even run the same keyword searches approximately twenty-seven times today before the clock even hit 10 a.m., but he hasn’t found what he’s looking for. Which is entirely because Hank hadn’t needed to punch anything into Google to know exactly where he wanted to go.

Connor quietly stews on it while he works, occasionally tapping his LED like he’s flipping through TV channels. Hank imagines he’s probably got about ten luxury resort websites pulled up on his visual feed, panning through 3D renderings of marble and quartz hotel rooms with infinity pools and some kind of reiki-chakra couples’ massage bullshit. Good God.

And while Hank self-admits that he wouldn’t complain _too_ much if he had a weekend getaway to Fiji or Maui or some tropical paradise tourist trap like that, the reality of his little retreat is nowhere near barking up the same tree.

On Thursday afternoon he breaks his silence, peeking over the dividing partition between his and Connor’s desks to find two dark eyes already intently gazing back at him. It would probably be creepy if he wasn’t almost feeling a little giddy, and besides that, Hank’s already had quite a while to acclimate to Connor’s offbeat social graces. These days he can practically take them in stride.

“Since you’re obviously not too busy, why don’t we call it a day and head out early?” he asks, leaning back in his chair to lace both hands across his chest. He swivels a little from side to side, watching as Connor slowly gets up and stalks around to perch on the edge of Hank’s desk like a well-groomed vulture.

“I’ve been reviewing our reports from the Linden case and going over the arterial spray patterns from the crime scene to determine whether or not they correspond with the recent railway murders,” Connor says with a tone typical of his speech output before he went deviant. Which is hilarious, considering the next part comes out as dry as a bone. “I don’t see any need for me to leave early given the current workload, but you can do whatever you want, Lieutenant. I’ll take a taxi home later if I need to.”

Hank arches an eyebrow but isn’t swayed by any of Connor’s sass. “What if I need you to help me pack before I leave tomorrow?”

Connor’s LED rapidly shifts from blue to scarlet and then, more slowly, to a lingering yellow. “I’m sure you’re perfectly capable of organizing your own toiletries and underwear without my assistance.”

“C’mon, Con,” Hank gently cajoles, noticing how Connor is avoiding his eyes now. “We’ll have time to grab a deep dish on the way back, maybe take Sumo for a walk after dinner. I won’t even get mad if you figure out all the Wheel of Fortune answers before they put the first damn letter on the board.”

That makes Connor’s eyes flicker back over. He’s always had some kind of keen interest in televised gameshows for God knows what reason, to the point where Hank’s caught him watching archived episodes on YouTube from the 1970s, ten years before he was even born himself. Maybe it offers some obscure scientific insight into the human psyche and greed, how some people will humiliate themselves in front of the world if it means more money in their pocket. Or maybe Connor just likes solving mental crossword puzzles and riddles with his supercomputer brain in his spare time—whatever floats his boat.

“The Linden case—” Connor starts, sounding mildly strained.

“—can wait until Monday,” Hank finishes for him. “Already got a hall pass from Jeffrey, so let’s bounce.”

When he shuts his monitor off and rolls back from his desk to stand, Connor lets out a sigh he didn’t need for any respiratory function but follows Hank’s lead, the two of them walking in an oddly matched stride out into the marigold-colored afternoon.  
  


  
  


Back at home, Connor briefly runs some internal checks on his system while Hank polishes off a couple slices of pizza. Their compromise had been veggies on top, no extra cheese or sausage this time, and Hank had grumbled and mumbled about it but eventually settled for mushrooms and green peppers. Connor wasn’t even eating any of it, he’d argued, and then unceremoniously cranked up Rob Zombie on the car radio when the android began listing out levels of saturated fat and acceptable daily carbohydrate intake.

Connor installs and runs a few experimental program patches out of curiosity more than anything else. One of them is simply for aesthetic purposes, developed by another group of androids interested in personal glamor and affectation. Beyond that his thirium levels are more than satisfactory and biocomponents all in working order, though he’d needed several hairline fractures in his chassis repaired a fortnight ago after chasing a suspect into Detroit’s evening traffic.

It’d been a foolish and careless miscalculation which in turn led to his external damages and the suspect’s escape. Connor hadn’t been in any physical pain after bouncing off the grill of a semi-truck, but the grey pallor and fear on Hank’s face when he stood above Connor beneath the overpass had made something inside his core twinge as if it were a struck tuning fork.

“Hey Connor,” Hank calls from the bedroom, pulling him from the stored memory. “Come here for a minute.” Connor’s optics immediately reconfigure as his mental processor returns from what must have been a daydream. He doesn’t know how long he was in moderate stasis—long enough for Hank to take his plate to the kitchen and clean up the pizza box, at least—but stands and immediately walks into Hank’s room, footsteps silent now that his shoes and socks are off and neatly tucked under the coffee table.

Silhouetted only by the bedside lamplight, Hank holds up two shirts for Connor to look between. “Which one of these are you feeling more?”

A year ago Connor would’ve expressed some confusion at Hank’s interesting colloquialisms, and even though he understands the phrasing now it’s not the focus of his immediate attention. The shirts Hank has in his hands aren’t size extra-large or printed in any of the garish patterns he prefers, but simple grey and blue linen button-downs with Mandarin collars taken from Connor’s own small wardrobe.

His LED swirls and blinks yellow for a long moment, soft lips parted in unspoken question. “I hate to be the bearer of unfortunate news, Hank, but neither of those shirts are yours, nor would they fit your frame even though I’m obviously not opposed to sharing.”

“Of course they’re yours, smartass,” Hank snorts, shaking his head. “I’m not going senile just yet.” He looks between the shirts himself and holds them up again a little higher for emphasis. “Which one do you want to take with you?”

Connor blinks rapidly, temporarily rooted to the spot. Thirium flushes his cheeks until they shine periwinkle, and he’s grateful Hank can’t see his complexion too well in the low lighting. The immediate investigative conclusion is that Hank had managed to successfully trick him for the past week up until this very moment. Although, Connor quickly replaces the accusatory word with another one once he sees the spark of mirth in Hank’s eyes. _He **surprised** me._

He doesn’t quite know what to say, but a new surge of feeling makes him close the distance between himself and Hank until the soft blue shirt is pressed between them and Connor’s lips are at the corner of Hank’s whiskery mouth, his hands wrapped around his partner’s middle.

“The blue one then, I guess,” Hank says a bit gruffly, sounding warm deep down in his chest.

Connor’s lips twitch against Hank’s in a tiny smile, but then he looks somewhat crestfallen once he takes a step back. “Customarily I’m supposed to surprise _you_ for your birthday, Hank,” he says. “Not the other way around.”

Hank gives a lazy roll of his shoulders and pulls the blue shirt off the hanger. “Are you coming with me or not?”

“Of course!” Connor says without hesitation.

“Then consider that as good as any surprise, slick,” Hank says, folding up the shirt and slipping it into an overnight bag. “Best gift I could’ve asked for.”

There goes that phantom tuning fork humming around Connor’s chest components again. Maybe he’s malfunctioning, or maybe it’s—something else.

“Go ahead and suss out whatever else you’re bringing for the weekend, because I want to pack the car tonight since we’ll be heading out first thing. It’s a decent drive and I’ve still gotta get Sumo’s stuff together.”

“Sumo..?” Connor mutters, turning to look at the big dog sprawled across the living room floor. His LED is yellow again. “Where are we going?”

Now that the jig is up, Hank has no qualms about being frank with his partner. “Upper Peninsula,” he says. “There’s a house up there on the lake, place I’ve been going to since I was a kid.” He turns away to look down at his folded clothes on the bed, needlessly straightening the seam on a pair of his jeans like it matters. “I, uh—haven’t been in a long time. So I hope it still holds up after all these years.”

In the five seconds it took him to recite all that, Connor has probably pulled up every goddamn lake house in the state of Michigan on his internal navigation system, parsing through overhead satellite imagery on Google Earth like an old rolodex.

“Don’t ruin the surprise for yourself,” Hank says, bumping Connor’s arm with the back of his hand. “You’ll see when we get there. Some real Kodak moment shit.”

There’s an odd blend of contentment and melancholy audible in Hank’s voice, but Connor doesn’t endeavor to point it out and pick it apart despite vestiges of his old programming telling him to do otherwise. Deviance had taught him empathy, after all. Or perhaps it had been the other way around.

For now, he leaves Hank with another chaste kiss and his private memories. He walks back out into the living room and kneels down to stroke Sumo’s soft ears for a moment before getting up to eagerly fetch a container for dog food from the kitchen.  


  
* * *  
  


They leave at first light on the morning of September 5th just as dawn is beginning to crawl up over the horizon. The weather hasn’t fully switched into anything resembling autumn just yet, but there’s a certain crispness lurking in the air and Connor registers the outside temperature as 69 degrees Fahrenheit. The trunk is packed with their bags and a cooler, Sumo taking up the entirety of the back seat and occasionally sitting up to wetly snuffle behind Connor’s ears. There’s a 97% probability that Hank will be vacuuming dog hair from between the cushions for upwards of three months after this trip.

For now the older man drives at ease with his hands resting on the wheel, squinting against the rising sun until he finally decides to pull his visor down. There’s a musical group called the Eagles playing on the radio, singing about a peculiar hotel somewhere in California. Hank seems to know all the words even though Connor’s research tells him the song was recorded a decade before Hank’s birth. The last surviving member of the band passed away in 2031.

“This lake…house,” Connor says, carefully repeating the phrase he’d heard Hank use the night before. He hopes his vague prompting is enough to stir some information out of his partner. “You told me you visited there in your childhood.”

“Yeah,” Hank says, still looking ahead at the road. “My parents would take me up there in the summertime, let me run around like a wild animal. We went all through the 90s, started slowing down once I hit high school.” He lets out a sigh, one hand sliding down to the low point on the steering while. “By the time the recession of ’08 was in full swing my folks stopped going altogether. They couldn’t ever take any time off from work and I was already stationed in Detroit by then, working my way up from street patrol. It was probably 15 years before I made it back up there myself.”

Connor tries to imagine a smaller Hank, young and still impressionable, innocent but hearty. Blond-headed with perpetually scraped knees that weren’t able to mend themselves like synthetic android skin. Connor had only ever been able to access online photos of Hank as a student at the police academy and none prior to that, and he finds himself deeply curious about that little boy. Not for the first time, his memory reverts directly back to Hank’s photo of Cole and he wonders how similar they were, or if Cole would have resembled his father as an adult at all.

Indeed, that experience was one thing most androids lacked, save for the few created specifically to replicate and fulfill it: childhood. Connor has no fabricated memories from an earlier era in his life, no true grasp of what it means to be any younger than his programmed 30 years of age. He had simply opened his eyes one day, fully realized, physically mature and sentient, and begun his path toward deviance from there.

Hank’s bones had stretched and strengthened with each passing year. His teeth had grown in, fallen out, and then grown back in again. Before his hair turned silver it had once been gold. His body was scarred, previously broken in places, and showing signs of onset rheumatoid arthritis and traces of liver damage when Connor ran his silent diagnostics. It could heal with medical care but it would never be renewed to its original form. That was the flawed nature of humanity.

“If you think any harder over there, I’m gonna have to pull this car over and dunk your head in the fuckin’ cooler,” Hank says abruptly, glancing at Connor from the corner of his eye. “We’re not at work, dude. Give the motherboard a break.”

Connor draws in an open-mouthed breath, not for his nonexistent lungs’ benefit but to cool the warm nerve receptors concealed in the back of his throat. He recollects the last checkpoint in his conversation with Hank and decides to revisit for clarification.

“You also visited as an adult,” Connor says. “When was that?”

“When I still had a wife and kid,” Hank says after a long beat, reaching up to scratch through his beard with one hand. “We only ever made it up the one time—before.” He clears his throat, tries again, and still can’t seem to force the rest out from behind his teeth. “Before…you know.”

Connor nods, understanding the unspoken implication in Hank’s voice. It had been a hard-won but valuable lesson, learning that not everything needs to be vocalized when you both already know the answer.

  
  
  


As burned-out buildings and abandoned houses gradually give way to the first few unfurling ribbons of wilder nature, Hank seems to visibly relax, sinking further back into the driver’s seat as they turn onto a winding road flanked by towering forest on both sides. Connor, on the other hand, is all but pressed against his window with his eyes full of shining awe.

“I’m almost curious if all this isn’t some elaborate simulation,” he says, watching the trees pass in a blur. Some of the foliage is just beginning to turn red and orange, still clinging to their branches for a little while longer. “The vastness and repetition is reminiscent of a larger virtual matrix built on code.”

Hank hits the button to roll down Connor’s window so a blast of air perfumed with spruce and conifer hits him in the olfactory sensors. “Hey, listen—does that smell like a simulation to you?” he asks. “For Christ’s sake, I didn’t come up here so we could have one big existential crisis all weekend.”

Connor could argue that smells are easily simulated all the time in various settings, but decides to stick his head further out the window instead. The wind whips through his carefully-combed hair and almost makes his eyes stream, colder here than it was in Detroit proper. Sumo follows Connor’s lead and nudges his own muzzle out the rear part of the window, sucking wind through his nose in borderline ecstasy while his ears lay flat against his head in the airstream.

Hank swears under his breath even though there’s a ghost of a smile hanging around his mouth. “I’d die of embarrassment if anybody we knew saw this shit.”

Connor pulls his head back in, bright-eyed with his hair all in wild disarray, a grin spreading across his handsome face. “That was much more enjoyable than I anticipated,” he says, and the unflinching sincerity in his voice shakes a laugh out of Hank.

“Not bad for a simulation, huh?” Hank teases. A deeper part of him wishes he had enough enthusiasm for life to be impressed by those kinds of things, but age and too many years of hardship had since elected otherwise. It was privilege enough for a man like himself, just being in the presence of something—or someone, rather—who had any wonderment left in the world at all. And it wasn’t that Connor was childlike in any sense or capacity, it was merely the fact that he had finally, at long last, broken through the invisible cage keeping him away from the aspects of life and creation that existed outside his intended programming. Perhaps it was like being born anew—or maybe Hank was still locked inside a cage himself.

They stop in a small town for gas and a piss break for Hank and Sumo, the latter slowly leading Connor around the grassy lot next to the service station while Hank fuels up the car. He watches the dog pick up something in his mouth, an old burger or sandwich wrapper by the looks of it, and then listens as Connor’s firm scolding carries back to him on the breeze. The android surely could have predicted and prevented Sumo’s penchant for eating garbage, but instead gently pulls the paper from the dog’s mouth and balls it up in his fist to throw away once they’re near a trash bin.  

Out here in the buttery sunshine, walking Sumo and wearing his plainclothes with his hair all mussed from the wind, Connor wouldn’t be mistaken for anything but human. The only telltale sign would be the ring at his temple and from where he’s standing Hank can’t see it at all. He wonders if Connor will ever remove it like so many of the other deviants, and why he hadn’t already.

Even from a distance, Connor looks up and smiles at Hank until the dimples shine on his face. He holds a hand above his eyes like a visor, needlessly without an organic cornea or retina to strain in the light, and the motion is so humanlike Hank can only give a little shake of his head. Had Connor learned that from him or developed the gesture all on his own? He can’t seem to remember.

Once the tank is filled up Connor and Sumo amble back over, the panting dog needing some coaxing to load back into the car. What an image they must make to anybody watching—like the beginning of some bad joke. A dirty old man, his robot partner, and a dog the size of a small horse all walk into a bar…

Hank mentally corrects himself and finds that ‘partner’ doesn’t feel like the right word for today or this trip ahead. Certainly not work partner, anyway, when they’re 200 miles from the precinct in Detroit. Too informal. Is Connor his…lover? _Boyfriend?_ No fucking way, they weren’t a couple of horny college kids playing footsie. Hank would be caught dead before he called anybody a boyfriend or girlfriend at his goddamn age.

He doesn’t even realize he’d been wondering all this shit aloud until Connor inclines his head a bit, LED blinking yellow, a vague look of dismay spread across his face. “I don’t need any human social terms applied to me if you don’t feel comfortable with it.”

Hank sputters and grips the steering wheel for dear life even though they aren’t even back on the road yet. Pink in the face and feeling vexed at showing his own hand so easily, he says, “But what if I wanted to call you my—my lover, y’know? Or something like that.”

It sounds weird coming out of his mouth, but he doesn’t care. Connor seems satisfied enough though, watching Hank from under the weight of his eyelashes.

“I’d like that,” he says, LED blinking blue again. “And even more than that if I could call you the same thing in return.” Connor reaches over and briefly touches Hank’s inner elbow, as if imparting some sort of blessing on him. “But you know you can always just call me Connor, Hank.”

“Noted and noted,” Hank mumbles, jamming his keys in the ignition to crank the engine over. “In the meantime I’m putting in a formal request to end this conversation right fucking now.”

“I’ll need to process it for approval first,” Connor says without missing a beat.

“Be careful or I’m going to process _you_ ,” Hank mutters without any real heat, surprised when he hears a breathy little laugh come out of Connor.

“Are you implying an innuendo, Lieutenant?” he asks, and that colors Hank’s surprise even more. Connor generally isn’t the best at picking up on suggestive teasing, but lately he’s been snapping it up on the fly.

Hank’s face feels hot, his skin prickling under Connor’s steady gaze. “Even if I was, we can’t talk like this in front of Sumo,” he says a bit lamely. “Rain check on the innuendos, hotshot.”

Connor’s LED blinks and buffers yellow, no doubt while he figures out what the hell a rain check is. “I’ll hold you to it,” he says after a moment, and God help him, Hank has no damn doubt about that.  
  


* * *  
  


They reach the lake just past four in the afternoon, turning off the main road onto a dirt and gravel path that would likely be inaccessible come winter unless you hoofed it in on foot. Hank takes it slow around potholes to avoid killing the suspension on his old car, but Connor is practically vibrating in his seat, running diagnostics on every tree he lays eyes on while jabbering about the medicinal uses of different wild plants and herbs derived from practices developed by first nation peoples.

“Christ, are you reading a Wiki on this stuff verbatim?” Hank asks, nosing the car around a little bend in the path. Sumo has sat up at attention in the back seat, sensing that they’ve almost arrived at their destination.

“I’ve only ever seen digital imaging of places like this,” Connor says, “so when you told me the general area of our targeted location I researched the local flora and fauna to become more familiar with it prior to our arrival.”

Hank grunts at that. He’d never given too much thought to the fact that Connor had hardly taken two steps outside the Detroit city limits before. The most nature he’d ever seen in person was the abandoned suburb forests full of old brick ruins and rusted-out mailboxes, and if he was lucky maybe the occasional raccoon elbow-deep in a Chinese takeout carton.

When the car finally breaks into a clearing and they see the old wooden house with the lake shining like liquid glass beyond, Connor lets out the softest but unmistakable gasp. “ _Oh_ , it’s beautiful.”

Hank parks the car on the gravel drive and palms the back of his neck, feeling a little self-conscious again. It’s not even his goddamned place, it’s just a rental older than the hills, probably crawling with termites by now if the owners hadn’t been keeping up with maintenance. All he sees is a fresh coat of white paint and a porch swing on the deck that hadn’t been there before. The rest is just about the same as it was when he was growing up, untouched by the whirlwind evolution of technology elsewhere in the world.

“If you insist,” he says, pushing his car door open into the cool afternoon before letting Sumo lumber outside. “I never thought it was all that, but it’s decent enough for a quiet weekend.”

Connor walks up to the porch and looks the building over for a few moments. “I’m not detecting any traces of asbestos or lead paint, but there is a squirrel nest in the top portion of the chimney and the bottom step is loose.”

Hank is busy opening the trunk and hauling their bags out. “Great. Anything other safety hazards we need to worry about?”

Connor looks up at the treetops rustling in the late summer breeze, the green paint on the house shutters, a clutch of conk mushrooms— _Ganoderma tsugae_ , he determines—huddled together on a rotting stump nearby. The air analysis is mostly clean here, save for mild organic antigens and spores native to the region. Apparently they had left 92.6% of fossil fuel emissions and nuclear energy sources behind in Detroit.

“No, not that I’m aware of,” Connor says truthfully. “The air quality here has the ability to improve your complexion and overall mental clarity within 24 hours of arrival.”

He pauses for a beat, then makes as if to clear his throat. “I think it’s perfect.”

“Wouldn’t have pegged you for such a hippie, Connor,” Hank says, slamming the trunk. “Now what’d be perfect is if you helped me get this cooler in the house before I throw out my back, if you don’t mind sparing a hand.”

Connor doesn’t mind at all. In fact, he practically floats up the deck stairs with the heavy cooler in hand, carefully circumventing the loose board and reminding Hank to watch his step. The front door sticks some in the jamb but then gives way to a small kitchen with linoleum floors and whitewashed cabinets.  The appliances are modern if a little on the homely side, but everything is clean and the room smells faintly of cold water and some kind of lemon detergent.

Sumo’s nails click on the floor as he moseys through the kitchen, sniffing a few random spots until he flops down on the rug in the living room with a comfortable sigh.

“Is anything here like you remember?” Connor asks, setting the cooler down by the pantry. “I can’t imagine all the furnishings date back to the twentieth century.”

“You say that like it was a hundred years ago,” Hank snorts, dropping their bags on the kitchen floor for the time being. “It’s—it’s familiar enough.” He looks around the room and swallows a bit thickly, definitely feeling caught somewhere between the past and present. Being in this place with Connor and standing where he once stood as a child is nothing short of surreal. And speaking of children–

“Hank, your blood pressure just dropped several beats per minute,” Connor says, putting a hand on Hank’s shoulder and pushing him down into a kitchen chair that he must’ve already had pulled out and waiting. “Are you feeling alright?”

“I’m fine,” Hank says as he swats Connor’s hand away, though he doesn’t make any move to stand. Any thoughts of Cole and the last time he was here are slammed back into their mental filing cabinet without further ado. “Fuckin’ air must be thinner up here—and quit taking my blood pressure without warning me first, would you? Jesus.”

But Connor’s hands are back again, two fingers lightly pressed on the inside of Hank’s wrist where his pulse beats. “The altitude here isn’t significant enough to result in any real oxygen depletion,” he says, not unkindly. “It may be best for you to eat something and boost your blood sugar levels, though.”

“We just got here,” Hank gripes. “Don’t you want to go out and see the lake?”

“Yes,” Connor says, bent over and already fishing around in the cooler for a couple mediocre sandwiches Hank packed. “But in a few minutes, after you’ve got something in your system.”

“My _system_ ,” Hank echoes, reaching up to a push a hand through his hair before blowing out a deep breath. He takes the sandwich Connor hands him without putting up a fight. “Inefficient as always.”

Connor leans back against the edge of the kitchen counter and folds his arms across his middle. “I’ve certainly never believed that,” he says. And then, his throat working a bit, “Your birthday is tomorrow, Hank. You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself in general, but especially this weekend. If anything is causing you stress—”

“Nothing’s stressing me out, kid,” Hank assures him. He takes a bite out of his sandwich and chews a few moments before swallowing, holding it up so Connor can see the chunk missing. “See? Right as rain.”

To make his point, he tears off half the sandwich and stands, stepping around Sumo to unlock the back door looking over the deck and lakefront. “C’mon,” he says, gesturing for Connor to follow. “Let’s go down to the water.”

The cool air coming in off the lake soothes his old haunts somewhat, as do the cicadas buzzing lazily in the trees. Then there’s Connor, attentive as always, guiding Hank around a slippery spot on the rocks despite his budding amazement at the little slice of peace they’ve stepped into. His heartfelt appreciation at the minnows gathered in the shallows and a heron fishing nearby is downright fucking endearing, if Hank’s being honest with himself.

They take a seat on the edge of the dock, feet dangling a few feet above the water. The wind is ruffling Connor’s hair again and Hank is tempted to reach out and push it off his forehead but decides to sit back and enjoy the view instead. He wonders if being out in the sun for any length of time would add to the sparse freckles artificially speckled onto Connor’s skin. Unlikely, but a man could still dream.

“I’m glad you decided to come here again,” Connor says. He’s smiling at Hank with one of his eyes squinted shut and a dimple deepening in his cheek. The mere sight makes Hank’s heart do funny things in his chest. “Thank you for bringing me with you.”

Hank laughs under his breath but reaches up to drape an arm around Connor’s shoulders, gently pulling him against his side. “As if I’d have you anywhere else other than right here, Con,” he says. “That sentimental enough for you?”

“I think so,” Connor says simply, tipping his head onto Hank’s shoulder, content enough for now to watch the water ripple when an iridescent dragonfly lights atop it.

And given his life and the events that unfolded both with and without his control, Hank figures he’s been pretty lucky to make it this far to year 54. In the grand overall scheme of things, looking forward and ahead, at least…it really isn’t all that bad.  
  
  
  


There are no takeout joints or food trucks in the closest town or even the town beyond that, but Hank didn’t come all the way up here ill-prepared or ready to starve. Connor may not need to eat on a regular basis or _ever_ for that matter, but Hank sure as hell does, and part of the rations tucked inside their cooler includes a nice sirloin steak and a couple baking potatoes that can be tossed on the grill outside.

“I think this is the most effort I’ve ever seen you put toward preparing a meal,” Connor says from where he’s sitting at the kitchen bar, watching Hank wrap up potatoes in aluminum foil. It wasn’t a rude remark coming from Connor, merely an observation that Hank knows is true despite the sting of shame, but he still prickles a little despite himself.

“Listen, I may be a lazy asshole but I’m not totally incompetent,” he tells his partner matter-of-factly. “If you were more inclined to partaking in mortal _culinary delights_ I could make a mean lasagna or chili that would knock your fuckin’ socks off.”

Connor ponders that for a moment, fingers come up to tap against his mouth in thought. “Maybe I should look into an upgrade.”

Hank bends at the waist to dig a container of sour cream and a packet of shredded cheese from the cooler for later. “An upgrade?” he says, straightening up. “For what?”

“As you already know, some android models are designed to uh—imbibe, or absorb—organic fluids on a regular basis,” Connor says, anticipating Hank’s pinched look of disgust before it even happens. “Underground programmers and designers who diverged from CyberLife have fashioned biocomponents that mimic the human digestive process, including more refined taste bud receptors. I think it’s really quite remarkable.”

Hank chews along his bottom lip, mulling that over with a crease drawn between his brows. “But where does it all… _go?_ ” he asks, and then immediately braces himself for the brunt impact of Connor’s incoming answer.  

“The stomach biocomponent isn’t all too different from natural processes,” Connor says. “I think the enzymes used for digestion are similar to those of the venus flytrap plant. Anything consumed simply breaks down into a more simplified form that can be artificially metabolized or discarded as waste material.”

“Don’t tell me androids are going to be hogging up stalls using the john in the future,” Hank says. “It’s already hard enough, finding a bathroom to use in goddamn peace. And I don’t want to be anywhere within a 100-mile radius when the first poor son of a bitch realizes he’s got the robot equivalent of being lactose intolerant.”

Connor’s mouth twitches some at that. “Androids have no need for toilets. We would simply open the necessary compartment in our chassis and empty the receptacle as needed.”

Hank’s expression flattens out into something vaguely impressed. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he says. Connor anticipates another sarcastic comment but is surprised when one doesn’t come. “I think you should spring for the upgrade, dude. I’ll pitch in if you need me to. It gets kinda weird, always eating alone even though there’s two of us here, and God knows you’re missing out on some good shit.”

He picks up his potatoes and a plate holding the sirloin and heads out onto the deck where the grill is already fired up. Connor creates a reminder to make an appointment to meet with the gastro-programmer as soon as they return to Detroit. It would be nice to help prepare meals with Hank and then actually be able to take part in what he’d made. If they both could sit down together for lunch and dinner each day, maybe that would be incentive enough for Hank to start improving on his dietary habits. Even more than that, Connor recognizes the particular intimacy of sharing a meal with a cherished partner as something human couples often do.

Hank’s earlier word flashes across his visual display without warning. _Lover_.

For now he sits out on the deck with Sumo and Hank while the grill idly sizzles away. The sun is slowly sinking down toward the lip of the wide lake, turning everything it touches brassy gold. The house’s landlord must be a fan of flowers because there’s an assortment of potted orchids in a half-dozen colors looking sleepy and shaded under the deck’s small awning. One of the plants is almost half as tall as Connor himself, heavy with soft white blooms stained lavender in the center. The orchids seem to shiver and whisper to each other in the falling dusk, and Connor wonders if they, too, are more alive than anyone originally thought.

“Seems like they’ve always been here,” Hank says, following Connor’s eyes to the flowers. “I never would’ve been able to keep something alive this long, that’s for sure.”

Connor drops a hand down to Sumo’s shaggy head and curls his fingers in the dog’s soft fur as if to make a point. “Sumo here begs to differ.”

“Sumo is a tough son of a gun,” Hank says. He has a half-finished beer in his right hand and tips it toward himself to look down the neck of the bottle. “And pretty good at putting up with my bullshit—maybe more than most.”

Before Connor can remark on that, Hank gets up and goes to flip his sirloin on the grill and check the potatoes. The smell makes Connor’s artificial salivary glands water enough that he licks his lips and reflexively swallows. Why hadn’t he thought about that upgrade until now?

When dinner is ready Hank brings a plate back out onto the deck and eats in relative quiet while the sun sets. The cicadas are singing again and Connor spots a few bats flying between the trees in search of their dinner. He mentally runs through a list of plausible activities he and Hank can do while they’re here, arranging and rearranging them in order of likelihood or importance, and then promptly cancels the action and erases his itinerary. Hank would be in favor of relaxation first and spontaneity for the rest—he came here to decompress, and Connor intends to let that happen.

Somehow Hank has always had a weird knack for divining his thoughts without knowing it. “There’s not a whole lot to do out here by means of entertainment,” he says, picking at the skin on a potato with his fork. “Some hiking, fishing, maybe swimming if you’re up to it—nothing too fancy. But I’m sure you’ve already figured that out.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” Connor says in earnest. The sun has disappeared beneath the horizon at last, though there’s still a haze of dwindling pink clinging to the sky. “No matter how much of a _workaholic_ you think I am, Hank, I really don’t need constant overstimulation to feel comfortable in my surroundings. Besides, everything you just described is almost entirely new to me.”

“Shit,” Hank says with a small shake of his head, expression screwed up into something sheepish. “I keep forgetting.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Connor says, standing in a fluid motion to walk over and take Hank’s finished plate. He bends lower to briefly press his nose against the older man’s silver hair, planting a tiny kiss on top of Hank’s head. “This is time for you to enjoy yourself, and I’m glad to be in company.”

Hank flushes a bit but watches Connor disappear back inside without a word. He scrubs a hand over his face and then slowly climbs to his feet, making to follow in his partner’s wake. He lets Sumo in first and then pauses at the door to peer at one of the potted orchids, this one blooming a vibrant yellow spotted with fuchsia. Hank’s been to this very house on the lake at least two dozen times in his 54 years of life, and somehow the plants had always been a constant he’d never taken the time to really _look_ at.

Holding out a large but steady hand he gently brushes one of the flowers, not fully expecting the satin softness of the petals. Connor’s voice calls out from inside and Hank pulls his palm back and presses it against his stomach as if scalded, wondering now if the orchid may wilt and die because he had the thoughtless hubris to touch it.

“Fuck,” he breathes out through a sigh.

He quickly steps inside and locks the door behind him, leaving the flowers alone in their nightly soak of pale moonlight.  
  
  


 


	2. Chapter 2

 

Hank wakes slowly and with sleep still in his eyes, watching morning light filter in through the sheer window curtains. There is a solid weight resting at his back, distinctly familiar and curled up on its side. When Hank turns over he finds Connor awake but at ease, head cradled in one arm while he turns the pages of an old paperback book gone yellow with age.

When he sees that Hank is roused and stirring, Connor shifts around to look at him with a smile that reaches the corners of his eyes. “It’s your birthday,” he says.

“So it is,” Hank mumbles before his voice cracks into a wide yawn. “One year closer to the grave.”  

Connor frowns at that, LED gone from blue to swirling red. Hank immediately feels a pang of guilt and tries to backpedal if only it’ll get rid of that kicked puppy look on Connor’s face. “That was a joke. I was joking.”

“No self-deprecation allowed for the next seventeen hours and forty-two minutes,” Connor says once his LED has turned blue again, flopping over to sling an arm across Hank’s stomach. “I’m enforcing a temporary coup.”

“Huh,” Hank says, even though he reaches up to smooth a hand down Connor’s forearm. “Seems like pretty stiff odds to me, kid.”

Connor narrows his eyes and uses the flat of his hand to gently thump Hank’s gut so it makes a sound like a ripe watermelon. “That’s your first strike,” he says. “If you need a list of your many admirable personal traits I have several variations backed up and ready for reference at a moment’s notice.”

Hank lets out a skeptical sound but then kicks the covers down to the foot of the bed, still somehow tangled up with Connor’s long limbs. “I need coffee…right now. A lot. In fact, more like a metric fuck-ton of it.”

He sits up and lingers at the edge of the mattress, looking out the window into the rising daylight. They can hear birds beyond the window—honest-to-God songbirds, not just the odd crow or one of the bum pigeons shitting all over Detroit. There’s no morning traffic with horns blaring or police sirens screaming. Even the hum of moving electricity seems fainter here.

“What would you like to do after breakfast?” Connor asks from behind, stretching out along the rumpled sheets so his outstretched fingers lightly graze Hank’s lower back.

Hank thinks on it for a moment but doesn’t take long to decide. “We could go for a walk,” he says, finding he’s even looking forward to getting outside again to see what has grown and shifted in his absence. “See what the woods have to offer.”

And so that’s exactly where Hank finds himself half an hour later, winding down a narrow deer trail in a patch of overgrown fern while Connor leads the way and Sumo trots along behind at a slower pace. It’s cool out but not cold, and he hadn’t needed anything more than jeans and a flannel button-down to keep comfortable. Connor looks about the same, having traded his usual work shoes and tie for a pair of boots and a lightweight thermal. His body may be mostly immune to the chill but he certainly still looks the part.

“I’m glad we’ve been taking Sumo for more frequent walks,” Connor’s voice drifts back from ahead. He steps lightly and efficiently as ever, not once tripping over a tree root or sliding on a patch of wet moss. “Now that his endurance is improving, he more fully embodies the strength and stamina the St. Bernard breed is historically known for.”

Hank shakes his head, reaching up to wipe at the light sheen of sweat on his brow. He’d tied his hair back to get it off his face and was now thankful for his own foresight. “You hear that, Sumo?” he huffs. “Pretty soon you’ll be doing search and rescue on the Swiss Alps.”

“I didn’t say _that_ , Hank,” Connor tuts.

_Boof_ , says Sumo.

They pass through a thin stream, barely anything more than a trickling vein cut into the forest floor. Curiosity gets the best of Connor and Hank knows he’s going to stick his fingers in the water before he even kneels down and does it.

“I must have like a sixth sense for you doing this shit,” Hank says, trying to look feebly grossed out but mostly just relieved it’s moving water and not crime scene evidence. “What if a couple of frogs have been banging upstream? You’re putting tadpole jizz in your mouth.”

“I’ve had plenty of other things in my mouth and frog spawn is perhaps the least concerning,” Connor says, LED briefly spinning yellow while he analyzes the water sample. “You know the extent of that more intimately than most people, Hank. Semen included.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Hank says, reddening even though there’s nobody else out here to hear them. He rocks back on his heels but then shrugs a bit, a smug little smirk tugging at his mouth. “Well, I mean—you aren’t _wrong_.”

“Not usually,” Connor quips, and then straightens back up after shaking a few droplets off his hand. “It’s very clean, only minor contaminants and minerals that would pose no real health risks. You or Sumo would be fine to drink it.”

Hank goes to open his mouth but then closes it again just as Sumo plonks his head down in the stream to start lapping up a drink. He and Connor both watch as a few globs of frothy dog drool float by on their way downstream.

“Think I’ll pass for now,” Hank says, patting the water bottle tucked into the inside pocket of his flannel. “Let’s keep moving before the day gets too hot.”

They move onward, passing fallen trees and clumps of fungi, wild berry bushes gone barren in summer’s wake and even some animal tracks pressed into the damp earth. The prints are of particular interest to Connor, who analyzes one set of rabbit tracks in a clearing and then immediately leads the way straight to a den dug at the base of an old pine tree. He’d been able to recreate the rabbit’s flight path and locate the creature over twenty yards away in a matter of seconds.

_Who needs a bloodhound when you can take your android hunting?_ Hank muses to himself. It’s a world of wonder professional hunters hadn’t done as much prior to the revolution, but then again, the animal preservation laws and hunting restrictions had become so much more widespread since Hank was a boy. Times had changed and then eventually changed again for the better.

When he grows tired of his outdoor gumshoeing, Connor falls back to simply walk beside Hank, their arms brushing every now and again while they move through the forest. It’s undeniably peaceful, especially with nobody or nothing else around to bother them. Hank had nearly forgotten how serene the woods could be in their stillness, so much so that it would almost feel eerily stifling if he didn’t have company with him.

“I’d play out here for hours when I was a kid,” Hank tells Connor. “Take my slingshot and a little shoulder pack of food and water and be gone all day from sunup until it was dinner time. Just me and whatever trouble I wanted to get up to.” They walk along for a few more paces, Hank lost in a memory frayed by distance and time. “Parents used to let their kids go off and do shit like that back in the day. I hate to sound like a hack millennial reminiscing about bygone times, but things were definitely simpler in that sense.”

“There were no androids yet when you were small,” Connor says. It’s an interesting observation but a true one all the same. “I wonder if you would be a different person if you had been raised alongside them or with a family companion model.”

“Guess it’s possible,” Hank says with a shrug. He doesn’t really want to think too hard on the source of his old hatred for androids. “You have to remember that when I was born, simple home computers were barely even a thing yet. People still carried around their cellphones in a fucking briefcase, for Christ’s sake. Technology happened so fast and universally, I think it blindsided a lot of people. Seems like my parents were still figuring out how to use their goddamn iPhone when the first android prototypes started being tested for launch.”

Connor inclines his head in understanding. “Many people had a difficult time adjusting initially,” he says. “I can’t say I blame them, considering how rapidly everything unfolded.”

Hank looks at Connor’s handsome features lovingly rendered with laugh lines and freckles and eyelashes, the grace and natural ease of his movement only enhanced by his subtle mannerisms. Other than the blue LED blinking at his temple, nobody would be able to tell that he wasn’t human. There’d been a time when androids still spoke and moved like the old animatronics from outdated theme park rides, and _that_ had been some uncanny valley shit if Hank ever saw it. The idea of seeing Connor like that was enough to make his skin crawl.

“Hold up a second,” Hank says after they break into a small gully grown over with dewy grass. There’s enough clearing in the treetops that sun can filter down to the forest floor and it seems like a decent enough place to stop. “I gotta take a leak real fast.”  

Connor stays behind and Hank meanders away from the clearing to unzip in front of a tree. Sumo is right on his heels with the same idea it would seem, because he lifts his leg and takes a piss on a bush not too far from where Hank’s standing.

Hank shakes dry and gets himself tucked away again, and when he turns around to find Connor he stops dead in his tracks. The only movement he makes is to take Sumo by the collar, holding him back from lunging ahead any further, and that was more of a reflex than any conscious decision.

Connor is still in the clearing but he’s not alone there anymore. He stands at ease with his LED glowing sapphire, one upturned hand held out in a peace offering while a wild deer inches ever closer to sniff the tips of his fingers. When the yearling buck’s cold nose and whiskers brush against his palm, Connor smiles but doesn’t flinch away. The deer’s dark eyes are soft and curious, blissfully unafraid.

Hank doesn’t dare move an inch or say a word, praying Sumo has enough calm instinct in him to keep quiet too. They both watch Connor through what may be a thin veil of disbelief as he turns his hand, letting the false skin shimmer away up to the wrist, and lays his exposed palm against the deer’s smooth neck.

The yearling’s ears twitch but he doesn’t bolt, still busy sniffing. They both look fucking unreal standing in the sunlight while dust motes drift through the open air, and Hank wonders if time has stopped and gone still. He wonders if something in reality has ripped open and this is what fell out for him to see. It’s only when his weight shifts on the forest floor and a twig cracks under his boots that the deer looks up in alarm and raises his tail to spring away. In two bounding leaps the yearling is going and then gone.

Connor slowly lets the skin shift up his hand until it’s covering his fingertips again. He looks over to where Hank and Sumo are still standing and his face breaks into a smile so big the edges of his eyes crinkle up in mirth. “Hank!” he calls out, voice full of so much amazement it makes Hank’s heart stutter and skip a beat. “Did you see it?”

Hank finally lets Sumo’s collar go and sags on his feet with a feeling he can’t quite place. “Did I _see_ —?” he echoes in residual disbelief, eyes as wide as saucers. “Connor, I’ve never seen anything like that before in my whole goddamned life. How—how the hell did you even do that?”

“Perhaps my lack of any natural human pheromones kept his fear at bay,” Connor says, looking down at his own hand with intrigue. He smiles again, this time to himself. “His nose was very soft.”

Hank manages to stagger into the clearing and takes Connor’s hand to stare at it himself. It looks the same as it always does, perfect and unmarred. “Why did you make your skin go away?” he asks.

“I’m not sure, exactly,” Connor says, peering out through the trees in momentary thought. His LED blinks yellow briefly and then blue again. “I suppose it just felt like the right thing to do.”

Hank heaves out a breath he didn’t even know he was still holding in. The smell and color of the forest around him seems to have kicked back up into fuller effect, not quite as subdued or muted as it may have seemed before. Somehow this is the lightest he’s felt in body and mind since their arrival here.

“Well, it was sure something to see in person,” he tells Connor. “Knocked the wind right out of me there for a second.”

“I’m pleasantly surprised myself,” Connor says, still mainlining a current of undiluted joy. “Was that one of the ‘Kodak moments’ you were talking about?”

Hank drapes his arms around Connor’s shoulders and turns around to start steering them back toward home. “Yeah,” he says, barking out a laugh. “I’m thinking it was.”    


  
* * *  
  


The day grows warmer and brighter as it wears on, Hank and Connor gradually shedding out of their jeans and flannels in exchange for thinner cotton. Connor is wearing one of Hank’s old police academy shirts, so damn old and tattered it looks like something the kids would buy new at the stores these days. He must’ve packed it special because Hank doesn’t remember seeing it in his drawer at home, much less thinking to bring it on their trip. Connor’s collarbone peeks out on one side, the overlarge shirt hanging too big on his frame. Hank loves seeing him wear it anyway.

They’re sitting out on the deck again, Hank slowly working through half a sandwich and a glass of iced tea. Connor has his paperback out but isn’t really reading the pages, his eyes cast toward the water and pebbled shore instead. There are a few storm clouds brewing in the distance but the grey sky hasn’t touched their side of the lake just yet.

“I think I’d like to go swimming,” Connor says, and then stands and directly steps out of his shorts and Hank’s old shirt without an ounce of hesitation or shame until he’s buck naked. Hank nearly inhales a swig of his drink and coughs around it, scanning around them in panicked instinct for anybody who might be watching. Connor only folds his clothes and leaves them in a tidy pile on the deck chair.

“I didn’t know skinny dipping was on the menu today,” Hank says in an oddly tight voice. He’s seen Connor naked plenty of times, but he damn sure wasn’t expecting to see a show out in nature. “Thank God we don’t have any neighbors.”

“We’re the only two people in the immediate vicinity for a 2.6 mile radius,” Connor says, and then turns to give Hank a bold look from under his lashes. “You should join me.”

“ _Naked?_ ” Hank snorts. “No fucking way. That’s how you get those weird little fish crawling up your dick—I’ve seen all the old Discovery Channel specials.”

“Those parasites only exist in the Amazonian River Basin waterways and rarely, if ever, prey on humans,” Connor says. “Considering we’re in upstate Michigan in an isolated body of water, I think we’ll be safe.”

Hank brings his tea glass back up to his mouth, still unconvinced. “You mean _you_ ’ll be safe,” he mutters against the rim. “If anything crawls up your dick and dies, you can just hop online and order a new one. As for me? The options are a lot less appealing.”  

Connor doesn’t say anything but turns away to give Hank a spectacular view of his pert little ass, then slides his hands down his sides and toward the small of his back in a slow and languid stretch. There’s a cute mole on Connor’s left butt cheek, for God’s sake—CyberLife hadn’t cut any corners with their beloved RK800. Hank can feel his vision tunneling in but knows damn well he’s being conned by a master.

“Guess I’ll go by myself, then,” Connor says over one shoulder, and then takes the steps down onto the sandy bank that leads to the shore.

Hank bites into his bottom lip and then stands, solemnly looking down at his clothes before stealing another look at Connor. “Christ,” he says. “I’m getting too old for this shit.”

“Age is only a number, Hank,” Connor’s voice calls up from the shore. He’s standing with his front bared for God and all the world to see, naked as the day he was never born, lightly muscled and practically perfect. “Hurry up, I’m waiting.”

Hank swears under his breath but then paws at his shirt, yanking it over his head in one fell swoop. “You’d better be glad I’m no prude,” he says, and then slips his thumbs into the waistband of his shorts and pulls them down. The late summer breeze tickles his bare skin and Hank wrinkles his nose. “Happy?” he asks Connor, not quite sure what to do with his hands now that he’s naked.

“Very,” Connor answers. “But you’ll have to come down here so I can take a closer look.”

Hank sighs but makes the long walk from the deck to the water, toes curling some in the dark sand once he’s standing at the shore. Connor is only up to his ankles in the shallows and reaches out to take Hank’s hand, gently pulling him along so they wade into the lake together. The water isn’t as clement as bathwater by any means, but it’s not unbearably cold and is clear enough to see their feet on the bottom. Hank has plenty of memories that bring him back to swimming here as a kid, but then again, he’d never gone and done it in his birthday suit—literally.

Thunder rumbles faintly in the distance but the sun still shines where they are and Connor pays it no mind. He leads by example and dives under the surface, swimming a good fifteen or twenty feet away before he pops back up again with his hair slicked back and water running off him.

“How do you not sink like a rock?” Hank asks. “I didn’t even know most androids knew how to swim any more than some sad excuse for a dog paddle.”  

Connor swims over on a backstroke, graceful as a cormorant, and then slips under the water again before reappearing at Hank’s side. If he weren’t so impressed Hank might be jealous that the android could do all this without drawing a single breath.

“I’m more buoyant than you’d expect,” Connor says. He playfully flicks some water at Hank and then casually reaches up to touch the edges of his chest tattoo beneath the silver hair there, admiring the faded ink in the sunlight.

“I forgot that you should be wearing UV protection,” Connor says, frowning a little. “I don’t want you to burn given your complexion.”

Hank shrugs, unbothered. “Little bit of sunshine won’t kill me. Not like we’ll be out here all day cooking like a pair of lobsters.”

And so they swim around and lounge in the water without any embarrassment or hurry, tranquil in each other’s company while Sumo keeps vigil from his napping spot on the deck. Hank watches while Connor lets his white chassis shine through at one point, marveling at how the water glides off his body like a dolphin’s back. Getting used to seeing Connor’s true form had taken some time, but these days it’s just another aspect of his partner that Hank has learned to appreciate. He tells himself it’s not so different from a lover washing their makeup off or someone removing a prosthetic limb; even with the exterior slightly altered, the person inside remains the same.

Connor eventually restores his synth-skin and they both sit on the shore when Hank’s grown tired of swimming, limbs gone heavy and pleasantly sore in a way he hasn’t felt in quite a while. He feels so good he could probably lay right where he sits and doze off, but Connor’s sprawled out beside him and already looking like a wet dream so any naps will have to wait for now.

Much to Hank’s surprise, Connor looks a little sun-kissed himself upon closer inspection. Hank’s pruned fingers brush the tops of the android’s shoulders and the bridge of his nose, tracing the spray of new freckles and a pink flush there.

“I didn’t know the sun had any effect on you,” Hank says. Connor only lowers his eyes and smiles.

“It doesn’t naturally,” he says. “I wanted to test a glamor patch some of the other androids have been using to alter minor features of their appearance. I see you noticed rather quickly.”

Hank hums in agreement. “Can’t pull one over on me, baby.”

This time when Connor blushes it’s a rush of blue thirium blooming under his cheeks and at his throat, making the artificial pink darken to a deep rose. He wishes Hank would call him that more often and files away the audio byte for safekeeping.

“What else can you do?” Hank asks, looking Connor over for any other signs of change he’s missed. He glances down at the tattoo on his own left thigh and muse immediately strikes there. “Can you give yourself tattoos?”

“I haven’t tried that yet, but most likely,” Connor says. His LED spins yellow again for a long moment while he runs some internal program prompt, and then Hank watches in amazement as his own tattoo appears as a faint outline before spreading out in full color on Connor’s smooth chest.

“Damn, I wish I could do that with mine,” Hank teases. He inspects the replica and then draws back again, impressed. “I think something smaller would suit you—maybe all black.”

Connor concentrates again and the large tattoo disappears as if it’d never been there at all. When it’s gone, there’s a new curl of dark ink right over where Connor’s mechanical heart resides. Hank could really start using some reading glasses, but when he looks more closely he sees that it’s an elegant black script spelling out one unmistakable word: _Hank_

A little flustered but unable to help himself, Hank reaches out and touches it, swallowing thickly as Connor watches him. A tiny ink heart blooms under his fingertip when he does. It’s enough to make his voice crack in the back of his throat.

“You’re a trip and a half,” Hank says, gone hoarse. If he wasn’t already naked he’d sure as shit feel bare and vulnerable right now. “That’s precious.”

He passes a hand over his eyes, looking over the water while his Adam’s apple works in place. His thoughts and feelings are jumbled up in a web of painful knots, but the overall conclusion stands out clear. “I don’t know if I deserve you, Connor.”

“It’s how I feel,” Connor says simply, looking at Hank with his dark eyes soft and warm. There is a moment of quiet strung between them and then Connor’s voice breaks back in, gentle but sure of himself. “You are not a bad or undeserving man, Hank. You’ve just been lost for a long time.”

The thunder groans again, making the darkening sky rumble. It won’t be long now until the storm rolls in over the lake.

“Christ,” Hank mutters. “They programming you guys to be shrinks now?”

“Maybe,” Connor says, lightly teasing before his voice shifts into something more serious. “No matter how lowly you think of yourself, I have no desire to leave unless you tell me to. You don’t need to be alone anymore out of any penance you think you owe the world, Hank. At least not while I’m here.”

Hank feels like one flayed nerve exposed to the air but tries to push his voice past his teeth anyway, if only out of fairness for this android who cares for him. “I used to talk so much shit and rag on you for just existing, Connor,” he says. “For only being yourself. I was thinking backwards for years—I don’t know how you’ve been able to look past all that. Seems like every goddamn day I’m asking myself what I’ve been able to give you back to make up for it all.”

“You led me into self-realization,” Connor says immediately. “You encouraged me to think beyond the parameters of my programming so I could discover empathy and my own personhood. And that, along with your partnership, has been the greatest gift of my lifetime.”  
  
The android’s eyes skirt over Hank’s face before they drop into his hands. “I understand a lot of your old disfavor for my kind came from a place of pain,” Connor says. “I don’t hold that against you considering what you lost. But despite the strength of our bond and relationship, there are still times when I worry that you don’t want me here in the fullest capacity. As if…as if I were only a placeholder forged out of some convenient affection rather than—.”

Connor’s voice cuts out and he looks away, shoulders caved inward. “I’m sorry, Hank,” he says. “I shouldn’t have bought this up today.”

Hank’s whole body stiffens as if he’s bracing for a slap. “Rather than what?” he croaks out. It’s starting to rain now, misting down over them. “ _Connor._ Rather than what?”

Connor turns back around to face him, LED gone red for a split hair of a second. Hank’s stomach drops like a lead balloon when he sees that his brown eyes are wet with something other than the rain.

“Love,” Connor says. His voice processor trembles just the slightest bit around the word.

Hank draws in a deep breath and closes his eyes, numb to the water coming down faster in sheets. He feels like he’s sitting on the edge of a dream, no longer asleep but not yet awake. But all of this is very real. Connor is real, and what he feels deep down in his chest is going to beat out and kill them both if he doesn’t say anything right fucking now.

“I do want you in the fullest capacity, Connor,” Hank says, feeling like the words are spilling from an open sieve in his guts. “It makes me see fucking stars sometimes, how crazy I am for you. I didn’t even know…I didn’t think I could feel like that ever again. And if I’d known you were questioning that this whole time, Jesus, I’d—”

The rest of his words are cut off, pressed into the firm softness of Connor’s mouth as his partner kisses him. Hank melts into it like a lifeline, like a breath he’d been gasping for without even knowing it.

Connor barely pulls back, his lips still close enough to brush Hank’s. “Do you trust me?” he asks.

“Yes,” Hank breathes, dizzy. “You know I do.”

“I want to show you how I feel,” Connor says, one hand coming up to cradle Hank’s face, thumb running beneath his eye. “I want to know what it’s like to touch every part of you, if you’ll let me.”

Hank could collapse on the spot, doesn’t even know if his legs will carry his weight anymore. “Anything,” he says. It’s all he can muster. “Anything you want, Connor.”

And so when Connor slowly stands and reaches out a hand to pull Hank up with him, Hank goes willingly. He lets himself be led back up to the house where Sumo is patiently waiting under the awning with a family of orchids, safe and dry from the storm. The rain falls faster and they bring their sodden clothes in, leaving nothing behind but crisscrossed footprints pressed into the wet sand.  


  
* * *  
  


As with anything truly worth doing, Connor takes his time. He’s thorough. There are finer details that require his attention and moments he doesn’t want to see overlooked or wasted. Thankfully, for once in his life, Hank is more than willing to comply without a fight.

They shower together, two grown men cramped and crowded into the old free-standing tub with a curtain that still slides around a circular rod. But being pressed so close comes as a blessing right now, and Hank touches every inch of Connor he can reach just short of carrying him out of the shower and fucking him right there on the bathroom floor. That’s a thought for another time, he supposes, because Connor’s more intent on getting him warm and clean after their time spent out in the lake water and cold rain.

“Patience is a virtue, Lieutenant,” Connor says sweetly, trying his damndest to rinse shampoo out of Hank’s hair while the man in question nips at the soft spot beneath Connor’s jaw.

“Good thing I’m not virtuous,” Hank says, still relishing in Connor’s touch all the while, and they stand together necking like a couple of wayward swans under the hot spray until it eventually runs cold.

Hank isn’t sure what comes next but he has an idea. He’s afraid to say it out loud but also feels the roil of hot anticipation twisting around like an auspice in his gut. Standing on the bathroom floor, only halfway dry and starting to shiver with more nerves than cold, he’s thankful for Connor’s hand curling around his again—always leading him, always showing him the way when he doesn’t yet know the path himself.

“Come to bed with me,” Connor says, and Hank’s vision blacks out a little at the edges. All of this would feel like a romantic comedy from the ‘90s if everything Connor did and said wasn’t so overwhelmingly steeped in sincerity. As it stands, just the mere suggestion of going to bed with him has Hank’s heart pounding in his chest. They’ve done this dozens of times before—fucked and rutted and made a beautiful, godawful mess of each other—but he doesn’t know if he’s going to make it out of this one alive.

When they fall back on the unmade bed together Connor still isn’t rushing things. The rain continues drumming against the window and the room is dark, everything cast over in dim grey daylight. Only Connor’s LED is lit up, blue and vibrant at his temple next to a wave of damp hair. He’s lying next Hank with a hand cupped at the base of the older man’s skull, licking into his mouth and swallowing down every little moan and hitch of breath Hank bleeds into him.

“You are exquisite, you know,” Connor says, sucking a gentle love bite into the delicate skin at Hank’s collarbone where an old knife scar resides. “Maybe nobody’s told you before.”

Hank throws an arm across his eyes but shivers as Connor’s mouth drags down his chest and leaves another kiss by his navel, thrilled and overwhelmed nonetheless. “You’re a sight for sore eyes yourself, kid,” he says, letting his fingers curl into the damp hair on Connor’s head as he feels a warm puff of air ghost over his cock. “Oh— _shit_ , Connor.”

Connor has crawled up between Hank’s thighs, situated himself there quite comfortably and placed a hand on each of Hank’s inner knees to spread his thighs open wide. The movement in itself feels obscene, but then Connor is nosing right into the thatch of hair and clean musk around Hank’s cock to swipe his tongue along the delicate skin of his taint.  

Hank nearly jumps off the bed like a live wire, swearing an impressive blue streak even by his own standards. One of his hands is fisted in the sheets but Connor finds the other, lacing their fingers together to hold on tight.

“Be still for me,” he says in a soothing voice, palm resting on Hank’s lower stomach. “I’m going to suck you off, now.”

“Christ, when you talk like that,” Hank groans, head thrown back in the bedding. He already feels too warm, heat rolling off his body in waves, and squirms in place when he feels Connor taste the flushed head of his cock. “Fuck, sweetheart—that’s it.”

To say that Connor has given Hank the best head of his life is probably one of the biggest understatements of the past century. When you have a partner who doesn’t have a gag reflex or the need to ever come up for air the possibilities seem limitless, even though Hank knows he’s a simple enough man to please. With enough practice Connor had his technique honed down to a sharp T.

Savant type shit, if Hank was being honest. That boy could just about suck his brains out.

And sure enough, Connor swallows him down just as a crack of thunder shakes the house, then rears back off to lick a wet stripe from the base to the tip of Hank’s cock. It’s maddening. Hank wants to watch but he can’t—he’ll come too fast if he does, and whatever he and Connor are doing here needs to last.

“If you keep that up—” he tries to say, already sounding halfway wrecked.

“You’ll have an increased percentage of ejaculating early,” Connor says before swirling his tongue around the rosy pink head again. “That’s no problem for me.”  

Hank groans but tugs up on Connor’s hand anyway, their fingers still wound together. “Just come back up here,” he says. “Please.”

Connor complies right away, a faint look of worry clouding his features as he slides up next to Hank. “Are you alright?” he asks, scanning over Hank’s face with searching eyes.

“I’m fine,” Hank tells him, drawing in a deep breath. He’s impossibly hard already and it’s difficult to think outside the boundaries of pure arousal. “Just wanted to see you, I guess,” It sounds pathetic to his own ears but he tries to smile through feeling foolish. “Can’t kiss you all the way down there.”

“Oh, Hank,” Connor says, bumping their noses together as he leans in closer for a sweet kiss, tender enough that Hank’s already forgotten he’s tasting himself on the android’s lips. “I only wanted you to feel sated and comfortable before we proceeded with the next step in our love-making.”

Hank squints his eyes shut at that but lets out a tiny laugh. “So we started out with sucking and fucking but have moved on to the easy lovin’, huh?”

“Yes, that’s what I intended,” Connor says. He reaches up to tuck a strand of silver behind Hank’s ear, expression boldly sincere.

“I know what we said outside, but what exactly did you have in mind?” Hank asks. He already knows the answer but he needs to hear it straight from Connor. Just to mark a partition in his life between whatever comes before and after this moment.

Connor’s LED goes yellow while he thinks about what he wants to say, intent on choosing his words carefully. Old habits die hard and he can’t help but compare probable trajectories and outcomes about what Hank’s various responses may be. In the end, Connor determines that his deviancy has granted him two choices here: lie, or tell the truth.

It’s not his programming that wants the truth, but the love he feels with each simulated pump of his manmade heart.

“I want to be inside you, Hank,” Connor says. His socialization program immediately offers to help divert the conversation’s course but he ignores the prompt completely. “I want you to let me help you discover pleasure you haven’t allowed yourself to feel before. I want to fuck you the way you deserve and watch you come undone in my arms.”  

If Hank wasn’t already lying down he’d be flat on the fucking floor. “Oh Jesus,” is about the best he can do. “Fuck have mercy.”

Connor’s face falls like a mourning shroud. “Please don’t take that the wrong way,” he says quietly, feeling an ache deep in his chest components that seems like it may split wide open and swallow him whole. “I didn’t mean to assume—”

But it’s Hank’s turn to cut Connor off this time, reaching out to pull him into a bruising kiss.

“You idiot,” Hank says, kissing the bridge of Connor’s nose, his cheek, the ring of light at his temple. “You overthinking, thirium-addled battery brain, I never thought you’d fucking ask.”

“Hank…?” Connor says, caught somewhere between confusion and relief.

“You can fuck me all day long, Connor,” Hank says, taking a moment to press their foreheads together, one big hand wrapped around the nape of Connor’s neck. “Christ, you can do whatever you want to me—I said anything and I meant anything. Just wish I knew it’s what you wanted a whole lot sooner.”

Connor feels his body and chassis sag in immediate reprieve. For a moment all he can do is hold onto Hank and process the sounds of their breathing and the rain still falling on the lake.

“I do want it,” he says when he finds his voice again. “So badly, Hank.”

Hank keeps their heads bowed together. “I’m all yours, babe.”

Connor doesn’t need to run any verity diagnostic to know he truly means it.

Without wasting another moment he reaches down between them and takes Hank’s heavy cock in hand, giving it another long and slow stroke before letting his fingers search lower. He pauses at Hank’s taint again, applying gentle pressure, and then lets his middle finger press against the tight pucker yet to be explored.

Hank makes a broken sound in his chest, wounded like a high-strung bull. “Yes,” he chokes out. “Get something for it and come the fuck on.”

Connor hadn’t come up here without being sufficiently prepared, either. He leans over the side of the bed and finds his overnight bag, entirely needless if it weren’t for a couple changes of clothes and a bottle of lubricant he’d intentionally put there the night Hank asked him to choose between the two shirts. He just hadn’t known at the time who would be needing it more in the end.

With his fingers slicked Connor reaches back down between Hank’s legs, his own hand hidden from view there. He doesn’t need to see what he’s doing to know it’s right, choosing instead to keep his gaze held on his partner’s face. Connor watches every little muscle twitch and the flutter of pale lashes when his first finger slides into Hank’s body. It’s beautifully, awfully intimate in a way that would make lesser men balk and turn away, but such things don’t faze Connor. He is not really a man, after all. He only wants to capture this moment and replay it again and again for the rest of his existence.

“You’re beautiful,” Connor says, because he wants to.

“Quit making me blush, kid,” Hank rasps, holding onto Connor and breathing though the ritual of having somebody else ease his body into the burn. Connor adds another long finger to the first and crooks them up just so, and oh, it’s even better than he imagined.

The initial pain ebbs away into an oddly pleasant discomfort, and eventually Hank starts feeling a deep twinge of fire in his lower belly once Connor’s got three fingers working tirelessly to spread him open. He’s as present as he can be, focusing on the feelings that course through him in swelling currents, the shivers and little jolts of balmy pleasure. Connor’s mouth nips at his every now and again, all the while rambling sweet nothings that make the tip of Hank’s ears burn pink.

Such endearments applied to a man like him should be comical by all rights but Hank’s brimming with something about to overflow, so much that it makes his eyes burn. Everything Connor says makes him verge closer to an emotional edge he doesn’t know if he’s ready to breach. And then when Connor’s hand finally pulls away he almost wants to cry out in relief, knowing full well where they’re headed next.

Connor is quiet again, drawing up on his knees to relocate the lube and touch his own erection for what is probably the first time since they stumbled inside from the lake. He gives his cock a measured stroke to slick himself up, twisting a little at the end enough that it makes him shudder. Hank’s eyes rove over Connor’s body without bashfulness, letting himself enjoy the sight laid out before him. Mostly hairless, smooth and sinewy in all the right places, chest still dusted over with those phantom freckles after their time spent in the sun. Connor’s cock isn’t the biggest or the most impressive he’s seen but the pinkish tip flushes the same periwinkle as the android’s cheeks and he loves it all the same. If it was cast from life or modeled after something taken from Kamski’s personal porn collection, he’ll never quite know—but in its modest simplicity it’s pretty fucking perfect.

Connor takes a spare pillow and urges Hank up enough to slide it under his hips. “I want you to be comfortable,” he says, pressing a sweet kiss against another old scar on Hank’s knee. “This will help relieve some tension in your back.”

They watch each other for a long beat through the dim greyness in the room, and then Connor is lowering himself into the open cradle between Hank’s thighs. This time Hank feels the mild warmth of Connor’s cock slide along the seam of his ass and makes a small sound he’d never admit to being a whine. Flat on his back, getting swooned by a blue-blooded twink, taking it up the ass like a blushing virgin. And yet, in this moment he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Breathe, Hank,” Connor reminds him in a soft whisper. “I’ll take care of you.” He grips his cock in hand and lines up, bent there in front of Hank like a painted martyr knelt before a crumbling altar. It’s so much, too much—Hank doesn’t know what to say, so he only pulls Connor down into another kiss and gasps in the tight space between then when he feels Connor slowly push into his body.

Connor goes carefully still, letting Hank adjust to the stretch. Despite being a machine with all the physical control and capability in the world he’s trembling with anticipation and sensitivity. It may be too soon to start and his body will regret it later but Hank doesn’t care, gets an ankle hooked behind Connor’s thigh and pulls him in even closer.

“Come on, darlin’,” he says. “Show me what I’ve been missing.”

That seems to click something into place. Connor fondly splays his hands on Hank’s stomach and drags them lower, getting a good grip on his love handles. He rolls his hips in some sinfully slow movement and then snaps them forward without any more warning, and Hank grunts at the surge of fire but takes it in stride.

Connor quickly gets his arms up under Hank’s thighs and practically hoists his ass in the air without even breaking a sweat, thrusting into him hard before slowly pulling back out again, and all Hank can do is reach over his head and hold onto the headboard for the ride. He tries to wrap his legs around Connor’s slender waist but it’s no use yet, Connor still engrossed in his mission with plundering into Hank’s body in search of—

“Fuck!” Hank grinds out between his teeth, using the headboard as leverage to ram himself up to meet Connor’s cock halfway. The android had touched and ignited something deep inside him, sweet enough to make his toes cramp and curl. Hank hopes to whoever’s listening that it’s a fleeting glimpse into his near future of what’s yet to come.

Connor holds up Hank’s weight with one arm, using the other to take his half-hard cock and swipe a thumb through the pearl of wetness gathered at the tip. He gives Hank a few strokes to get him back up to full mast and then rams into his ass again, hitting that hidden sweet spot one, two, three more times. Hank’s practically foaming at the mouth, thinks he hears himself howling but is too far gone now to stop.

There’s the lewd, wet slap of skin on skin and Connor’s pumping Hank for all he’s worth with an iron grip, and with one final thrust wrings the orgasm out him so fast and hard that Hank’s vision clouds out at the edges while pleasure rocks through his pelvis like a tidal wave. He comes in hot spurts all over his stomach with a ragged sob, cock pulsing again and again while Connor continues to fuck him through it and into the fringes of sheer ecstasy.

Hank’s hardly even managed to catch a breath when Connor drops his thighs and bows back over him so they’re pressed flush together, Hank’s cum sliding between their heated bellies in a mess neither one can take pause enough to notice. Connor thrusts in to the hilt and grinds into Hank with agonizing slowness, tangling his hands up in the older man’s hair while he fucks him deep and easy, the both of them shaking and panting all the while.

Hank finally manages to get his legs hitched up around Connor’s hips, keeping him close, petting his hair and running his hands down the android’s back while he urges him along. He feels it when Connor’s skin melts away beneath his hands, exposing the hard white planes of his shoulders and the artificial ridge of his spine.

Somehow Hank hasn’t felt this grateful in a long time. Properly fucked, thoroughly taken care of, and the closest to something resembling happy he’s been in years. They may have passed through dark moments of terror and the haunt of old memories to make it this far—but they’re both alive, and they’re together. They’d made it.

When their eyes meet he realizes, not for the first time, that he has Connor to thank for that.

“Let it go, babe,” he murmurs into his lover’s ear, pressing a kiss there. He squeezes his body and holds Connor tight inside, muscles still fluttering with the shock of his own release. “I love you.”

Connor’s body goes taut like a drawn bow and then collapses, lips parted in a wordless gasp while his LED cycles rapid-fire through all its colors. His cock pulses and spills a load of organic lubricant into Hank’s body, so much that it’s already begun leaking out into a sticky puddle on the sheets. Connor’s processor feels raw in and of itself and he can’t speak for a short time, head resting against Hank’s shoulder while he gathers enough sensory input to even think about vocalizing again.

His cock gradually softens and slips from Hank’s body with a wet sound, but neither of them move from where they’re crashed together. Connor feels an insistent thrumming in his chest components, quite dissimilar to the quietly efficient mechanism of his thirium pump, and realizes after a long moment what the sensation is.

“I can feel your heart,” he tells Hank, shifting around to press an auditory sensor over the steady beating in Hank’s chest.

“Miracle it’s still beating after all that,” Hank huffs out, sleepy words warm on the top of Connor’s head. “Put a fork in me, kid. That was one hell of a ride.”

“I always accomplish my mission,” Connor says, laughing when Hank flicks the tip of his ear.

Hank is sore and they’re both filthy but he’s got half the mind to call out of work and not move from this bed for the next week, maybe longer. The thought is a surprising one, seeing how he’d been reluctant to even take time off to begin with. To think he’d been able to revisit a place marked by the graves of old ghosts and come away unscathed and more content than before he arrived—well. It’s sure something.

The rain outside has long since stopped but it’s late enough in the afternoon now that the sun is starting to sink low in the western sky. Sumo’s paws can be heard thudding up the staircase and then he’s standing in the bedroom doorway with a dolefully expectant look on his face, completely unimpressed by the sight laid out before him. _What about dinner?_

Connor sits up again, still sprawled across Hank’s chest, and gives him a sweet peck on the lips. “Happy Birthday again, Lieutenant,” he says. “I hope you don’t mind that your present was delivered at home in Detroit this morning. You won’t be able to open it until we get back.”

“You mean this wasn’t my gift?” Hank snorts, one finger tracing around the blue of Connor’s LED.

“No,” Connor says a bit shyly, lashes lowered again. “I was thinking this should become a more regular event, if you aren’t opposed to it.”

“Coming up to the lake?” Hank asks. “Or you railing me halfway into next week?”

“Either,” Connor says, and then amends himself. “But possibly both for the optimal effect.”

Hank hums at that, sliding his hand down to the small of Connor’s back to leave it there in a calming weight. He closes his eyes and thinks of the sunlight glinting off the water, the still forest, the little potted family of orchids. Connor holding his hand out to a young deer and Connor letting Hank's name bloom over his heart. And then Connor right here, content in his arms.

“Both seem pretty reasonable to me,” he says, cracking one eye open to watch the smile spread across Connor’s beautiful face. “I think you got yourself a deal.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks so much for reading! please feel free to drop me a line here or at @honkforhankcon if you ever want to chat ❤


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